Finite element analysis of resistance spot welding process

Guo Zhong
School of Mechtronics & Automobile Engineering
Yantai University
Yantai, 264005, China
guozh100@tom.com

Abstract - A coupled finite element model is developed to mechanical behaviors of RSW process, reduce the computing
analyze the transient thermal and mechanical behaviors of time with the minimum lost of accuracy and get more
Resistance Spot Welding (RSW) process using commercial adequate information of the process, improve the quality
software ANSYS. A direct-coupled electrical-thermal Finite monitoring and process control of RSW.
Element Analysis (FEA) is firstly performed to simulate the
transient thermal characteristics of RSW process. The thermal II. MODELING AND PARAMETERS
history of the whole process and the temperature distribution of
the weldment are obtained through the analysis. Then based on A. Model and Mesh
the thermal results a sequential coupled thermo-elastic-plastic Fig. 1 illustrates the 2-dimensional axisymmetric FEA
analysis is conducted to determine the mechanical features of model of RSW process built in ANSYS program, where x and
RSW process. The mechanical features, including the y represent the faying surface and the axisymmetric axis
distributions of the contact pressure at both the faying surface respectively.
and the electrode-workpiece interface, the stress and strain y
A B
distributions in the weldment and their changes during the RSW P
process and the deformation of the weldment are also calculated. Upper
Cooling electrode
water
F G
Index Terms -Finite Element Analysis (FEA), Resistance Spot
C
Welding (RSW), electrical-thermal coupling, thermo-elastic-plastic D
E Į H
analysis O I x
Sheets
I. INTRODUCTION
J
Lower
Resistance spot welding is a complex process in which electrode
coupled interactions exist between electrical, thermal,
K L
mechanical, metallurgical phenomena, and even surface
behaviors. In the recent years, finite element method provides Fig. 1 The FEA model of RSW process
a powerful tool in studying these interactions, and many
related works have been carried out on the FEM modeling of In order for correctly coupling and transferring data, the
RSW. Nied[1] developed the first FEA model for RSW model must have identical mesh both in the electrical-thermal
process, investigated the effect of the geometry of electrode on analysis and in the thermo-elastic-plastic analysis, as shown in
workpiece and predicted the deformation and stresses as a Fig. 2, whereas the element types are different or have
function of temperature. Furthermore, many researchers different degree of freedom options. In the figure, contact
developed more sophisticated FEA models that considered area 1 and 2 represent the electrode-workpiece interface and
temperature dependent material properties, contact status, contact area 3 represents the faying surface.
phase changing, and coupled field effects into the simulation
of RSW[2-4]. To solve the coupled problem, iterative solution Upper electrode
procedure is an often-adopted method. Initially the stress field Contact
and contact status are obtained from the thermal-mechanical area 1
analysis, and then the temperature field is obtained from the
fully coupled thermal-electrical analysis based on the contact Sheets
area at the electrode-workpiece interface and faying surface. Contact
The calculated temperature field is then passed back to the area 3
thermal-structural analysis to update the stress field and Contact
area 2
contact status. Lower electrode
Even if the iterative method can provide the temperature
field, the electric potential field, the stress and strain Fig. 2 Mesh of the model
distributions in one calculation, the modeling of transient
processes with such a methodology would probably require a B. Welding parameters and material properties
tremendous computing time. The objective of this paper is to The welding parameters used in this analysis are: welding
develop a multi-coupled method to analyze the thermal and current, 50 Hz sine wave AC current of 12.2KA; weld time,

978-1-4244-2723-9/09/$25.00 
c 2009 IEEE 5799
13 cycles (0.26s); electrode force, 3000N; hold time, 3 cycles electrode and workpiece are given in Table 1. Because the
(0.06s). materials are subjected to a wide range of temperature, most of
The thermal, electrical and mechanical properties of these properties are considered as temperature dependent.
TABLE I
PROPERTIES OF MATERIALS[5]
Temp. к 21 93 204 316 427 538 649 760 871 982 1093 1204
Thermal Mild
64.75 63.25 55.33 49.94 44.86 39.77 34.91 30.50 28.41 27.66 28.56
conductivity steel
Copper
W/(m•к 390.3 380.6 370.1 355.1 345.4 334.9 320 315.5 310.3 305 300.1
electrode
Mild
Resistivity 14.2 18.6 26.7 37.6 49.5 64.8 81.8 101.1 111.5 115.8 117.9 120.9
steel
Ө•mͪ10-8 Copper
2.64 3 4 5.05 6.19 6.99 8 8.98 9.48 9.98
electrode
Contact
Resistivity Faying
2.38 2.31 2.25 2.12 1.93 1.79 1.31 0.567 0.492 0.417 0.342
surface
Ө•m2ͪ10-7
Mild
Young’s 206 196 194 186 169 117 55
steel
modulus
Copper
GPa 124 105 93 82 55 38 25 16 14 7
electrode
Coefficient Mild
10.98 11.52 12.24 12.96 13.5 14.04 14.58 14.04 13.5
of thermal steel
expansion Copper
(/к)ͪ10-6 16.56 16.74 17.1 17.46 17.82 18.36 18.54 18.9 19.26
electrode
Mild
248 238 224 200 172 145 76
Yield stress steel
MPa Copper
83
electrode
Specific Mild
443.8 452.2 510.8 561.0 611.3 661.5 762.0 2386 1189
heat steel
Copper
J/(Kg•к 397.8 401.9 418.7 431.2 439.6 452.2 464.7 477.3 502.4
electrode
Mild steel: Solidus-1482 к Liquidus-1521 к Latent heat-2.72ͪ105 J/Kg

III. RESULTS OF THE ELECTRICAL-THERMAL ANALYSIS
The temperature fields and its changing of the whole
weldment are obtained through the coupled electrical-thermal
analysis. Fig. 3 shows the temperature changing histories at
three key points: the center of the weld nugget, the center and
the edge of the electrode-workpiece interface.
faying surface, and then expand to the material near the faying
surface, the nugget start to form. As the temperature rises, the
nugget keeps growing. Fig. 4 illustrates the geometry of the
nugget and the Heat Affected Zone (HAZ), from which we
can get their dimensions.

Fig. 4 Illustration of nugget and HAZ

Fig. 3 Temperature changing histories of three points

At the start of the welding process, the temperature at the IV. RESULTS OF THE THERMO-ELASTIC-PLASTIC ANALYSIS
center of faying surface increases very fast. The highest
temperature keeps at the center of the faying surface through A. Contact pressure
out the whole welding process. Melting will firstly occur at the

5800 2009 Chinese Control and Decision Conference (CCDC 2009)

 Fig. 5 shows the contact pressures on the faying surface
versus radial distance at different welding cycles. During the
squeeze step (for the convenience of describing, the squeeze
step is marked as cycle 0), a maximum contact pressure is
attained near the edge of contact area, and the pressure at the
center is a little less than this value. As the heating cycles
start, the pressure near the edge decreases, while the pressure
at the center increases quickly. Then the pressure near the
edge start to increase, becomes and keeps larger than that of
the center during the consequent cycles. At the same time, the
location of the maximum value moves outward of the contact
area. The high contact pressure near the edge of the contact
area is benefit to the RSW process because it can prevent
liquid metal expulsion during welding.
Fig. 5 The contact pressure distributions on the faying surface
The contact pressure distributions on the electrode-workpiece
interface are shown in Fig. 6. During the squeeze step, the
pressure is relatively uniform near the center of the contact
area but very steep at the edge. As the heating cycles start, the
pressure near the center increases while the pressure at the
edge decreases quickly. This status keeps for 4 cycles, and
then another change occurs. The distribution pattern became
similar as that of the squeeze step, i.e. low and uniform near
the center while very large and steep at the edge. The contact
pressure distribution keeps on this status up to the end of hold
step and the electrode edge keeps working under large stress,
which could be a vital cause for the wear of electrode tip.
Fig. 6 The contact pressure distributions on the electrode-workpiece interface
B. Stress and strain
The stress and strain field in the weldment during the
RSW process is very complex. Fig. 7 shows the distribution of
normal stress y at cycle 9, when the weld nugget starts to
2009 Chinese Control and Decision Conference (CCDC 2009)
form. There is mainly compressive stress in the contact area,
and the stress field is very complex due to the combination of
squeeze and heat.
Fig. 7 The distribution of normal stress y at the time of nugget started to form
The distribution and change of the strain, especially the
plastic strain, is very important to the residual stress and
deformation of the weldment. The welding residual stress is
produced in welded joint as a result of plastic deformation
caused by non-uniform thermal expansion and contraction due
to non-uniform temperature distribution in the welding process
[6]. Fig. 8 shows the distribution of plastic strain at the time of
maximum temperature. It can be seen that lager plastic strain
occurs near the edge of the contact area through the thickness
of sheets, and forms a “plastic annulus” around the contact
area. The “plastic annulus” is helpful to prevent liquid metal
expulsion during welding [7].
the distribution of plastic strain at the
time of maximum temperature and the
end of hold step
Fig. 8 The distribution of plastic strain at the time of maximum temperature
C. Deformation of weldment
Fig. 9 and Fig. 10 show the deformation of the weldment
at the squeeze step and the end of hold step, respectively. For
the clearance of illustration, the deformation shown in Fig. 9 is
amplified by 100 times, whereas 10 times in Fig. 10. So it is
obviously that the deformation at the end of hold step is
extremely lager than that of the squeeze step. This means
much deformation is produced in the RSW process due to the
thermal expansion. The deformation will affect the properties
of the welded joint since it cannot be completely eliminated
after welding. For example, a fatigue crack or failure notch
may initiate at the end of gap between the two sheets.
5801
 [3] Xing J. T., Price W. G., Chen Y. G. A numerical method for simulating
nonlinear fluid-rigid structure interaction problems. Acta Mechanica
Solida Sinica, Vol. 18, No. 2, June 2005: 95~109.
[4] B. H. Chang, M. V. Li, Y. Zhou. Comparative study of small scale and
‘large scale’ resistance spot welding. Science and Technology of Welding
and Joining, 2001, 6(5): 273~280.
[5] C. L. Tsai, W. L. Dai, D. W. Dickinson, J. C. Papritan, Analysis and
development of a real-time control methodology in resistance spot
welding, Welding Journal, 1991, 70(12): 339s~351s.
[6] Y. Ueda, Y. C. Kim, M. G. Yuan, A predicting method of welding
residual stress using source of residual stress (report I), Transaction of
JWRI. 1989, 18(1): 135~141.
[7] M. Zou, Foundation of welding theory and process, Press of Beihang
University, Beijing, 1994.
Fig. 9 The deformation of the weldment during the squeeze step (amplified by
100 times)

Fig. 10 The deformation of the weldment at the end of hold step (amplified by
10 times)

V. CONCLUSIONS
A multi-coupled electrical-thermal and thermo-elastic-
plastic analysis is developed and carried out on the transient
thermal and mechanical behaviors of RSW process. Based on
the ANSYS program, this multi-coupled method can
efficiently provide sufficient details of RSW process, and
increase the quality monitoring and process control of RSW.
Through the thermal histories and temperature distributions
obtained from the electrical-thermal analysis, the geometry
and dimensions of the nugget and HAZ are drawn and
calculated.
Results acquired from the thermo-elastic-plastic analysis
show that the contact pressure keeps high value near the edge
of the faying surface and is benefit to prevent liquid metal
expulsion during welding. The contact pressure at the edge of
the electrode-workpiece is very large and could be a key factor
of the wear of electrode. Due to the combination of
temperature and electrode force, the stress and strain fields are
very complex in the weldment. During the welding cycles
there is compressive stress in the contact area of faying
surface, which is helpful of good metallurgical structure and
forming a condensed weld nugget.
REFERENCES
[1] H. A. Nied. The finite element modeling of the resistance spot welding
process. Welding Journal, 1984, 63(4): 123s~132s.
[2] K. S. Yeung, P. H. Thornton. Transient thermal analysis of spot welding
electrodes. Welding Journal, 1999, 78(1): 1s~6s.

5802 2009 Chinese Control and Decision Conference (CCDC 2009)